


fruits of our labor & our loins

by dilfhakoda



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Bending (Avatar TV), Angst, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Mild Blood, Minor Character Death, Teen Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, everything goes to shit but dont worry it gets better.... eventually, for now... that might change, mild violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25502332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilfhakoda/pseuds/dilfhakoda
Summary: Simply put: Katara's pregnant and Zuko may be going to jail.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 100





	1. prelude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried doing research on how the court system works for juvenile offenders but i couldn't find all the information so forgive me if i get something wrong. I might come back and edit this later because it might be a bit jumpy (I'm posting this a bit late, I just couldn't resist), but enjoy!

Katara couldn’t stop trembling. Her legs shook so badly that the toilet seat clanged against the porcelain bowl, so loudly she’d think it might break. Her left hand peeled off the stick in her grasp to bolster her chest, to keep herself from falling forward and slipping on her own worries. 

It was the fifth test. She had wasted 45 dollars and hours of false hope and gallons of water just to entertain her own denial. 

She was pregnant. 

_Pregnant_.

Her mind was simultaneously empty and filled to the brim with an onslaught of emotions and thoughts and images. There was no way she could shift through them, so she didn’t even try. All she could feasibly do was concentrate on stopping herself from dry heaving. 

Katara liked to think she was a near perfect daughter. She strived to please her family and honor her mother’s memory. She studied hard, aced her tests, balanced her school work with her extracurriculars. She avoided the wrong crowd so much they made fun of her. 

_This_ wasn’t something that happened to good daughters. It didn’t even happen to okay ones. How the hell would she explain herself? To her father, to her brother, to her grandmother? To Zuko? To the entire world, which she knew would be watching?

With a heavy, uneven breath, Katara wrapped the test in a ball of toilet paper and stuck it into the trash can, where it was reunited with its sisters. 

* * *

Zuko didn’t mean to kill him—at least not _really_. But he also didn’t want to die. He didn’t want another burn. He didn’t want to be the one to lose. Not again, not this time. 

His father used to tell him, ‘It’s kill or be killed.’ His father would never tell him that phrase again. His father was dead, with all the blood left in his body leaking out into the carpet. 

He remembered how his father had hit him once for spilling orange juice onto that very same carpet. Juice wasn’t like blood at all. Blood had a thicker consistency, and its splotches were more defined, and instead of pulp there were clots. 

If Zuko ever had a child, he would never tell them that it was kill or be killed. But having any sort of life after this was seeming unlikely. More likely, he would never see the light of day again. He would never see Katara again. 

(What was the difference, really?)

He walked to the kitchen sluggishly, as if on death row, took a seat at the table, and cradled in his hands with his head, displacing the future that once occupied them. 

* * *

It turns out figuring a way to tell Zuko was the least of her worries. Well, not the _least_ , but it had rapidly dropped out of the top 3. 

He called her the next day. She hadn’t slept the entire night before, running the different scenarios over in her head, rubbing her stomach which was too premature to give away her condition. 

In most of them, Zuko leaves her somehow, whether of his own volition or the cruel hand of fate. She imagined her father running him away. His father beating him to a bloody pulp. A toaster dropped in the bathtub. Car crashes. Betrayal. 

She had been sitting on her bed with a throbbing headache as she stared at her chem homework when he called. Her pencil was twitching between her fingers, but did not make contact with the paper. Too distracted to even start the first problem, she focused on the shape of the letters and numbers and nothing else.

She jumped when she heard her ringtone. 

Katara picked up the phone, some of the sweat collecting on her palms transferring to the device. She’d barely come to terms with the pregnancy herself, and wasn’t sure if she was about to tell him or keep putting it off even longer. 

“Katara?” 

His voice was shaky, but numb at the same time. She could sense something wasn’t right, and the source of the feeling wasn’t coming from her end. Suddenly her pregnancy had moved to the back of her mind.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, trying to hide the frantic tone in her voice. 

“I don’t know when I can see you again.” He said, like he’d rehearsed it, carefully detached but painfully honest. When Katara thought about it later, running the conversation back in her head, she was certain he had. 

“What? What do you mean?” Her stomach dropped. _No fucking way was his timing this terrible. No fucking way was he leaving her, not now, not like this. Definitely not when she was pregnant with a baby_ _—_ _THEIR baby._

“I’m in trouble. I’m so sorry.”

“What are you talking about? Zuko?” The franticness was quickly leaking out into her vocal chords and into her veins, clouding her mind and making her vision fuzzy. A wave of nausea flooded through her, hitting against her stomach like a boat to a rocky shore, and she wasn’t sure whether it was due to the fetus or Zuko’s voice. 

His voice was breaking. “I need to go. I love you.” 

It was the first time he’d told her that, and he said it without hesitation, as if it was routine. As if he’d told her that sentence every day of his life. 

Before she had a chance to respond, he hung up.

* * *

“I’m going to be real with you, kid. The odds aren’t good. You’re 17, practically an adult already, and the crime is serious.” 

Zuko said nothing in response, and chose to stare at his shoes instead. The floor of the Juvenile Intake Unit was safer to observe than the suit-wearing stranger in front of him. The suit-wearing stranger who was—unbelievably—his only hope.

“Are you listening to me? This is serious. If you’re tried as an adult, you’ll be looking at _actual_ prison time.” 

Again, no response. Mr. Jee sighed. 

“You really should be acting more grateful. You’re lucky your uncle hired me instead of giving your case to some public defender.”

“I don’t even know my uncle,” Zuko mumbled. Mr. Jee’s eyes widened in mock surprise.

“Oh, so you do speak! Well, If you ever want to have the chance to know him, you should start paying more attention and do exactly as I say.”

Zuko’s coldness, which had been static and unwavering since his father’s body hit the floor, spontaneously gained heat. 

“Then what the fuck do you _want_ me to do?!” He growled, forcing his head up to give Mr. Jee the best snarl he could muster. That trick usually worked on kids at his high school, but his lawyer was clearly not impressed, and ignored the outburst. 

“First,” Mr. Jee said, holding up his index finger, “this may be the only time in your life that scar will come in handy.” He tapped his own temple for emphasis, as if it was a reflection of Zuko’s. 

Zuko’s singular brow quirked upwards in genuine puzzlement. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is, we’re laying the child abuse narrative on _thick_.”

Zuko scowled. He didn’t like how his experience was being talked about—like it was a strategy; a means to an end.

“Not everyone gets such to wear such a prominent example of their abuse. The judge won’t be able to look away. He won’t be able to seperate the act from the character. It’s _literally_ plastered on your face.”

Zuko quickly realized he felt that way because that’s what was in fact happening. His face twisted in rage once more, though this time he bit back a remark. 

“Don’t give me that look—it’s a good thing! We need the sympathy points. Establishing a history of abuse is gonna be the key to getting you in juvie rather than an adult facility. So, just as a heads up, I’m gonna be dragging your father’s name through the mud. In a tasteful way, of course.”

Zuko knew people saw his scar before they saw him. It made him seem aggressive. It made people fear him. This was just like that, even if it was being spun in a positive light. The only person who had accepted him and his scar, rather than judge it or fetishize it, was Katara; and he may never see her again. And even if Zuko did see her again, he guessed she would want nothing to do with him. Disappointment would be the best case scenario, and that wasn’t likely at all.

“You’re an asshole!” Zuko barked. He didn’t disagree with the treatment of his father by any means, but Mr. Jee’s treatment of him was making him doubt that the lawyer had a sensitive bone in his body. Mr. Jee smirked, then leaned over to pull a notebook and a pen out of his bag. 

“I may be an asshole, but I’m also good at my job. Now, second order of business: tell me everything you said in your interview.” 

“My interview?” Zuko repeated. It was Mr. Jee’s turn to look confused.

“Yeah? Earlier? With the policeman?” 

In truth, Zuko could barely remember it. He could barely remember anything from the past few days. The parts surrounding his father’s death came in blurs, and the main event itself felt as if it was locked behind a door in his mind, and he couldn’t find the key.

“I, um… I was honest. I told him what happened.” 

Jee tapped his pen against his notebook. “Uh-huh, and what was that? Go over it again, for me.” 

Zuko closed his eyes and racked his brain. He couldn’t find the key, but he could find a version of what happened. If memories were video tapes, this version was more like a picture book; still accurate, but slow, and in snapshots. The punches, the pushes, the pulls—his whole range of motion that night replayed in photo stills. 

“I… I came home. Late. I—”

“Why?” Jee interrupted. He asked it like he was retelling a small anecdote, and not the worst moment and most serious crime in his life to date. Zuko clenched his fists.

“I was on a walk. It helps me clear my head.” Zuko explained. Jee wrote something down.

“What time did you arrive home?” 

“Um… About 11:15, or 11:30 I think. Maybe 11:00. I can’t remember.” 

Jee nodded, eyes fixed on his notebook.

“And I… My father was downstairs. Drunk. I didn’t expect him to still be awake. I don’t know why he was so angry this time. He’s always angry when he catches me doing something like that. He’s angry when I don’t do anything at all. I suppose it was just a matter of time before enough was enough…It’s like a glass of water. You fill it with tiny drops, and even though the drops are tiny, eventually they all add up, and there’s going to be one drop that causes it to overflow. I guess this was that drop.” 

Jee stared at him. If Zuko had been staring back, he would see something akin to empathy in his eyes. But he wasn’t—his eyes were glazed over, and his vision was unfocused. He was in another world; one composed of remembrances and hesitation.

He continued, recounting the story with an alien cadence while Jee scribbled into his notebook wordlessly. Once it was over, Jee sighed again thoughtfully.

“So it really _was_ an accident… That’s tough, kid.” 

Zuko blinked slowly. His chest felt tight. 

“Real tough.”

“Yeah,” Zuko agreed, swallowing. “Real tough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Making another multichap fic while i still have 2 that aren't halfway done? It's more likely than you think!
> 
> Comments & kudos fuel my lifespan


	2. pear shaped (i)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara hears some news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally........ I have updated. 
> 
> CW: mention of hypothetical miscarriages + typical zuko stuff (abuse)

It had officially been 2 days since Zuko’s ‘disappearance’, and the hope that Katara had been holding out was just about gone. She’d left likely over one hundred texts and/or calls, without so much as a read receipt. The only thing that was preventing her from contacting the authorities was Zuko’s phone call. She played it over in her head again and again, even writing a transcript of it down so she wouldn’t forget it. The call had given her the impression that Zuko knew what he was doing, even if he didn’t want to do it—and she knew from experience that when people got involved with his family issues, it left things worse off than they started.

* * *

_"Why the hell did you get call CPS, Katara!"_

_He was the angriest she'd ever seen him. And she wasn't going to take it sitting down, not when she was doing this for him._

_"I'm sorry I fucking care about you!" She had retorted, throwing her hands up in the air. Zuko shut his eyes and shoved his hand onto his face in frustration._

_"I don't mind that you care, I mind that you did it behind my back!"_

* * *

She spent this time not only worrying for Zuko, but also finally began to shift through her thoughts. There were around 30 incognito tabs open on her computer, filled with articles on pregnancy and children and abortions and relationships and teenage criseses. According to google and mental math, Katara was around 2 months along, so she still had some time to figure out if she wanted an abortion. She read stories from women who had abortions, who had miscarriages, who gave birth and gave their child up for adoption, who kept their baby whether or not it turned out alright for them in the end. Even though she could digest what these women were saying, it didn’t help; She still felt alone.

If her mom was here, she would know what to do, what to tell her, how to console her. But she wasn’t, and Katara was left in the dark. Well, except for her Gran Gran, but she had no idea how to broach _this_ particular subject to her… Or anyone, really. Telling someone would mean admitting it was real. It would mean facing them, their reactions, their judgments, and she would never be ready for that. 

Despite her state of semi-denial, Katara was keeping a bowl in her room to throw up in, in case the bathroom was occupied, though she hadn’t actually thrown up yet. She also discovered that her once life-saving drink of choice—coffee—now had a tendency to make her nauseous, so she was forced to avoid it. Her already neglected homework was going even worse without a caffeinated aid. But beyond the knowledge she was pregnant, she hadn’t experienced much else in the vein of symptoms. 

She was dreading the day it got worse… If she ever _let it_ get that worse. Maybe, she’d be lucky, and have a miscarriage, and the problem would be fixed for her, the choice would be made for her. _No_ , she scolds herself. _It_ _wouldn’t be lucky. That wouldn’t be lucky at all. That’s traumatic for people, isn’t it? It’s sad. Just sad. You’re horrible for thinking that._

Needless to say, that train of thought only made her feel worse. Most of her thoughts recently were having that effect, actually, and it seemed like her nature to overthink was finally biting her in the ass.

That Sunday night, Katara laid in bed and made a decision: If Zuko didn’t respond by the end of the next day, she would alert the authorities. Her hand came to rest on her stomach, and she prayed that it wouldn’t come to that. 

_Please be okay,_ _Zuko. I can’t do this without you_.

She wasn’t sure what she meant by ‘this’, but she did know that whatever it was, she needed him to be there with her.

* * *

* * *

Katara awoke to a moment of bliss, where all of her current problems were temporarily forgotten in a sleepy morning fog. Sadly, that moment didn’t last long, and the reality of her situation rushed back to her: a developing fetus and an AWOL baby daddy. After sighing and shutting off her alarm clock, she reached for her phone to check if Zuko had responded, only to be met with no new notifications. Frowning as she remembered her promise the night before, she got up from her bed anyway. 

A new alarm had begun to count down; this one was her head, and with each second it made a _tick_ in the back of her head, constantly reminding her of her predicament. Doing her best to drown it out, Katara started planning out her morning.

Since her father was a truck driver, he was gone for around 4 weeks at a time, and could never stay home for very long. Her mother had died when she was very young, and then a few years ago, her grandmother had moved in with her husband, who lived only a few blocks away. The majority of the time, Katara and her brother, Sokka, were the only permanent residents in their home. Despite that, It never felt lonely—their neighborhood was populated entirely by other Water Tribe members, many of whom they had known since they were children and felt like family.

Sokka had the unfortunate tendency to sleep until noon if not interrupted, so it was up to Katara to wake him up for school. It was another responsibility put upon her shoulders, just like cooking, cleaning, homework, and… recent events. It was an exhausting cycle; but she loved Sokka, he needed her, and though Katara didn’t like to admit it, she needed him as well.

After a change of clothes, she walked to Sokka’s room and knocked. As expected, there was no answer. To Katara, this was essentially as much of an invitation as if he had loudly proclaimed, “Come in"! So, she twisted the doorknob. 

She waded through the dirty boxers dispersed across the floor and shook Sokka.

“Sokka! Wake up!”

He snored.

“Sokka!”

This next snore was interrupted mid-way through.

“Sokka, are you awake?”

Groggily, Sokka mumbled his affirmation. Katara stood there, arms crossed, until he finally sat up all the way, making sure he didn't go back to sleep. Once that was over, the rest of her morning routine was easy. She took a quick shower, brushed her teeth and hair, then hurried downstairs to put bread in the toaster and gather up her textbooks.

Sokka hurried down the stairs only a few moments before they were due to leave, grateful that Katara readied a bowl of cereal for him in advance, expecting this scenario to play out as it always did. Then he rushed out the door to their dad’s old pickup truck, and Katara slid in next to him as he gobbled down his breakfast.

“You really need to start setting an alarm clock. How are you ever going to survive when you go to college?” Katara teased as she buckled her seatbelt.

Sokka started up the car with the cereal balanced between his legs before answering.

“You mean _if_ I go to college. Also, I’ve already tried alarm clocks, and have yet to find one that actually goes off loud enough to wake me yet.”

Katara let out a short laugh—that definitely checked out. Absent-mindedly, she pressed the home button on her phone to check for notifications. Still nothing from Zuko. The sense of dread inside her continued to build. Eyes still on her phone, Katara responded.

“Are you still on about this? We’ve talked about this before. Dad _wants_ you to go.” 

She couldn’t understand why Sokka was even considering staying behind from college. Despite his faults and quirks, Sokka was smart— _very_ smart. He had a bright future ahead of him, and everyone knew it.

“I don’t wanna have this conversation again so early in the day,” Sokka groaned. “Let’s just drop it, Katara.”

Katara frowned. “Fine. What do you wanna talk about instead?”

“Hmm…” Sokka said, taking a turn around the block. His eyes lit up as if he’d remembered something.

“Oh! Did you hear about Krueger’s dad?”

Katara’s heart, which had been beating oddly since she woke up, rapidly picked up speed. ‘Krueger’ was the offensive nickname that everyone at their high school had given Zuko; the main inspiration of course, being his large facial scar. Zuko knew about the nickname, but he had shrugged it off when she asked him if it bothered him. Katara doubted he was so nonchalant about it on the inside.

Defending Zuko wasn’t the first thing on her mind at that moment, but on instinct she corrected Sokka. “I told you not to call him that, Sokka! His name’s Zuko. And no, what are you talking about?” 

Sokka shrugged. “You know I don’t mean it that way, that’s just what everyone else calls him.”

Katara scowled. Sokka was too focused on driving to notice it.

“It’s insensitive. You don’t know how he got it.” 

If Sokka knew what she knew, he wouldn’t be joking. The memory of Zuko telling Katara how he got burned was still vivid in her mind’s eye.

* * *

_It was night in the middle of September, and the temperature had already begun to drop. Still, the blanket was only covering half of their naked bodies, because their combined heat kept them warm. Katara had her head resting on Zuko’s bicep when he revealed his secret to her._

_“It was… My dad.” Zuko confessed, swallowing hard. She had felt like crying as he recalled the story, but refrained from doing so until he had finished. His eyes got wide when he realized the state she was in._

_“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’ve never told this story to anyone before—”_

_“Don’t you dare apologize, Zuko.”_

_“...Is it bad I almost said sorry?” He said with a laugh, completely changing his demeanor from only a few seconds before. Katara wanted to laugh with him, but her heart was still too heavy. Ever observant—especially when it came to her—he noticed this, too._

_“Katara, don’t feel b—”_

_“I don’t know what you truly think about it… You always share these things like you’re so disconnected from them. But I want you to know you didn’t deserve it.”_

_He said nothing, but she could hear his breath shake as Zuko pulled her closer to him._

_It was many weeks later, when Zuko came to school with a black eye, her suspicion that his father’s abuse hadn’t ended was confirmed._

* * *

Sokka pulled her back to the present with a response and his loud slurping. “Katara, you know I love you and your compassionate heart, but you don’t need to die on this hill.”

Katara regretted distracting Sokka from the main topic at hand.

“I — Whatever, forget about that, just... Tell me about his dad. What do you mean?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it yet. He got, like, murdered!”

Her heart started beating so fast, it took up half of her hearing, and the temperature of her blood jumped a mile from how fast it was pumping through her veins.

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” She asked him frantically, staring intently at his face for any sort of clue. From the context, it sounded like Sokka was saying Ozai was dead, but she needed to be sure he didn’t mean Zuko before she could think of anything else.

“Kr— I mean _Zuko’s_ dad got killed." A momentary relief flooded Katara, before the rest of the implications bombarded her, and she slumped against her seat with a vacant look in her eyes.

Ozai was dead and Zuko was missing. There's only a few reasons why the second would follow the first.

Sokka kept going, unaware of the effect that sentence had on his sister.

"I heard it from Haru the other day. The cops haven’t released what happened yet, it was probably a burglar or something, but you know what Zuko’s reputation’s like. Everyone at school’s already assuming he did it..."

By the end of that phrase, Sokka’s words began to feel fuzzy to her ears, like they were fading out of reality. Or maybe it was her; maybe Katara was the one fading out, with the numbness in her fingers, the white noise buzzing loudly in her head, and the impending ache in her cranium. Somewhere outside the haze obscuring her senses, Sokka’s concerned voice was asking her something, but she couldn’t even begin to decipher it.

They were so unbelievably fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you thought!
> 
> *Note: In case you're not aware, Zuko's nickname 'Krueger' is a reference to the character Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elms Street, [who is covered with 3rd degree burns](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/76/1e/04/761e042c7c0890b1b6b2d9e56930ff1a.jpg)


End file.
